If Google and Motorola are right, the future of manufacturing is local.

They’re betting buyers will want to personalize their products, starting with color schemes. That requires a nearby plant with fast turnaround times, and that’s the rationale for building the first smartphone factory in the United States.

The cavernous facility in Fort Worth’s Alliance area received lots of attention last week as politicians, executives and media gathered to celebrate and take a tour. Photos captured a sea of assembly line workers, standing shoulder to shoulder in blue scrubs and white jackets as they snapped components into place.

We have 150 million smartphones nationwide, and until now, all were produced abroad.

“This is the most important technology of our generation, and we weren’t making it here,” said Dennis Woodside, CEO of Motorola Mobility.

The upstart Moto X began shipping last month and is vying to grab market share from Apple’s iPhone and Samsung’s Galaxy. To stand apart, Motorola offers the phone in 18 colors, from spearmint to cement to lemon-lime, plus seven colors for the power buttons and camera ring.

Customers configure their models online or at an AT&T store. And because the phones are made to order in Fort Worth rather than in China, Motorola pledges delivery within four days. Eventually, it hopes to reduce order-to-delivery time by half.

That’s the competitive advantage of manufacturing at home, and it was the starting point in Motorola’s decision to produce here. It also became the marketing hook: “A phone so brilliant only you could have designed it,” an advertisement reads. “Designed by you. Assembled in the USA.”

The Moto X comes in standard black and white versions, too, and they’re stocked at retail stores and wireless carriers. But if personalized products become the next big thing, Motorola has a leg up and American manufacturing has brighter prospects.

Woodside said consumers prefer more input on designs. And the economics have improved because flexible manufacturing compensates for higher U.S. labor rates. Having designers and engineers in the same time zone speeds development and adjustments; the Moto X assembly line was revised recently after a designer flew in from Chicago for a weekend brainstorming session.

“I can change those assembly lines to build any product in any color — and within an hour,” said Mark Randall, who oversees supply chain and operations for Motorola.

‘Proving … people wrong’

About 2,500 employees work at the plant today, with two 12-hour shifts cranking out more than 100,000 phones a week. The conventional wisdom was that American factories were too expensive and workers too inflexible to win those jobs.

“We’re proving a lot of people wrong,” said Mike McNamara, CEO of Flextronics, which runs the plant and partners with Motorola.

To doubters, he pointed to a 30 percent increase in Flextronics’ U.S. revenue this year and the rapid ramp-up in Fort Worth. The company started retrofitting a mothballed Nokia plant in March, and he said it’s now among the 15 largest manufacturers in North Texas.

“Not bad for six months,” McNamara said.

While most economic statistics show little resurgence in U.S. manufacturing, leading companies have announced new plants, including Google, Apple, GE and Caterpillar. The equation has been tilted by rising wages in China, higher shipping expenses, low-priced energy and a push to buy American.

All this makes the U.S. labor piece less significant. According to IHS, a Colorado research firm, Motorola spends $12 to manufacture each Moto X. While that’s 50 percent higher than the iPhone and Galaxy, the phone’s total cost is squarely between those rivals. All three retail for about $200 with a two-year contract.

It’s too soon to tell whether Motorola has a hit. Color choices and a “Made in the USA” label are selling points, but Rassweiler said the phone “doesn’t break much new ground.” And it’s the success of the Moto X and future products that will determine the plant’s staying power.

Built to expand

The 480,000-square-foot factory is about half-filled with assembly stations, testing equipment and materials. It could produce up to 20 million devices a year if fully utilized. The current run rate is about a quarter of that.

“We built a facility we can grow into,” said Randall, who worked in the same building for Nokia.

In 2000, Nokia had 3,800 workers in Alliance before shifting production to Mexico and closing seven years later. Nokia’s packaging supplier was in a building across the street. Companies that produced mechanical components and phone chargers were nearby, too.

Randall is following that model and pushing suppliers to relocate. That will speed up production without increasing inventory costs.